11/29/2018

Huntington's "Man in the Ring": TKO

Kyle Vincent Terry in "Man in the Ring"(photo: T. Charles Erickson)

All
right, one might as well utter the obvious about the Huntington
Theatre Company's current production about a famed prizefighter: It's
a TKO. Actually, it's more than a technical knock-out, it's a
creative one as well, now in its world premiere. The play, based on
an all too true story, is Man in the Ring, formerly
an opera, now in the form of a play written by Tony and Pulitzer
Prize winner Michael Cristofer and Directed, in his debut with the
company, by four-time Tony nominee (for Rent, Grey Gardens,
Next to Normal and Dear
Evan Hansen), the phenomenal
Michael Greif. Even if one is familiar with the events portrayed,
there is much to be revealed, not the least of which is the true
meaning of the title which doesn't pertain to professional boxing at
all. In fact, even those of us who reject prizefighting as sport
will find this the highlight of the theatrical season thus far.

As
the play Man in the Ring begins,
we're first presented with an elderly black man sitting alone on
stage singing a Caribbean children's circle song to himself: “Brown
boy in the ring, tra la la la la”. The man is Emile Griffith (John
Douglas Thompson), now 70, living with the after effects of years of
prizefighting, knockouts and hits having affected his brain. This has
resulted in his need for assistance from his caregiver Luis (Victor
Almanzar)for even the
simplest tasks such as putting on his shoes. Griffith was diagnosed
with dementia pugilistica, related
to CTEor chronic
traumatic encephalopathy, its symptoms mirroring those of other
dementias such as Alzheimer's.

The story flashes back fifty years to the era of the
much younger Emile (Kyle Vincent Terry) who, having first run away
from his aunt's house to a home for wayward and orphaned boys on St.
Thomas, is sent for by his mother Emelda (Starla Benford) in New
York. Emile wanted to design hats, his mother wanted him to be a
singer, and the owner of a hat company, Howie Albert (Gordon Clapp),
took one look at his physique and told Emile he would help him train
as a boxer. Years later (in 1962), as a six-time world champion
boxer, he is playfully teased by his opponent and arch rival Paret
(Sean Boyce Johnson), calling him “maricon” (a homophobic
Spanish slur referencing the fairly public knowledge of Griffith's
bisexuality) at their weigh-in for their match at Madison Square
Garden, which ends tragically. The remainder of the story deals with
the aftermath of that fateful fight.

The play, part magical realism and part memory play, is
an astonishingly gripping one, though its first act is a mite slow in
getting underway. There is also one scene about mixing up a job
application for styling women's hats with an audition for
prizefighting that is confusing if you're not acquainted with the
particulars of Griffith's life. The story of his rise and fall, his
hasty brief marriage, and the consequences of a lifetime gone awry,
builds in intensity in the second act, partly due to Cristofer's
incisive writing and partly to Greif's fascinating direction. The
use of some matching, overlapping and contrapuntal dialog is
especially captivating (and difficult to describe), well delivered by
Terry and Thompson (the latter giving a performance for the ages).
The rest of the cast, from Almanzar to Benford to Clapp and Johnson,
are all superb. On the creative level, Huntington as usual has a
coterie of theatrical champs, from Music Director Michael McElroy to
Set Designer David Zinn to Costume Designer Emilio Sosa to Projection
Designers Peter Nigrini and Dan Scully and Fight Directors Rick
Sordelet and Christian Kelly-Sordelet. Special notice should be paid
to the electrifying Lighting Designer Ben Stanton and dynamic Sound
Designer Matt Tierney for their pluperfect contributions.

What transpired in life and on stage was a man's search
for redemption after a truly tragic confrontation. As Emile
succinctly summed up his sexual life:“I will dance with
anybody”, and, equally telling, stated that it was “strange...I
kill a man and most people understand and forgive me... (but) I love
a man and to so many people, this is an unforgivable sin; this makes
me an evil person. So even though I never went to jail, I have been
in prison almost all my life.” It's a telling expose of the
underside of life back in the day (and still today) with its bigotry
and callousness. In the end, it was Griffith who was “in the
ring”, at the center of the circle song who at last reached out to
the one he truly loved. This true-to-life tale ends with a powerful
punch that makes the work unforgettably moving and emotionally
devastating.

The fight continues at the Calderwood Pavillion venue in
the South End until December 22nd.